The last few discussions have been awesome and for some, possibly tedious.  Some people I know have also relayed to me the thought that it seems a little divisive also.  Hence the last post for explanation.

This week will be simpler, I think.  But it will possibly provide opportunity for a lot of discussion, I hope.  I do not want a bunch of cut and paste biblical proof texting on this though.  We all have bibles and I am sure we know most of the scripture that tell us how we are to be saved.  Here goes.

What do you believe a real Christian looks like?

What are the beliefs that you think must be necessary for someone to really be a Christian?

Do you think there is any room for your thoughts to be wrong?

Please share your thoughts and not what your denomination or favorite theologian says.  Thanks for participating.

Love you all

A couple of days ago I asked some questions about alcohol and whether the bible condemns all consumption of it as sin.  On the face of this it seems pretty certain that it is not.  Any casual reader of the stories of Jesus would recognize the fact that His first recorded miracle was turning water into wine.  And there are other direct references of His very own consumption of it.  Yet I have read and heard many arguments about it being sin.

There are those that will use all kind of pretty far out excuses to say that this is not really saying what we think.  The scripture is not saying what it seems to say.  Grape juice?  Really?  Are we to believe that God is just trying His best to confuse us?

There are those that, in the past and probably still today, say that it is even wrong for a Christian to serve or sell alcohol.  Again, I point to Christ’s first miracle.  If I should not serve or sell it then why in the world would Jesus turn water into it?  We seem to still have tremendous problems with self-righteousness.

These thoughts and questions are not really the reason I raised this question though.  For some very thoughtful, adult insights about the consumption argument in general, please read Tuesdays post and comments.  Everyone who responded made points I not only believe to be correct but I hold to them myself.  And I especially think that when you vow or commit to something as Heath and Jason did as ministers, then you should adhere to those commitments like they pointed out that they did.

If the organization you join says you have to stand on one foot for 30 seconds and face east at 8:00 am every third Tuesday and you agree, then you must do it whether it makes sense or not, if you are a person of integrity.  The health and danger issues are also valid reasons why not drinking makes sense, and the witness in a culture that definitely glorifies alcohol as the means to get drunk is not one the Kingdom really needs.  I don’t drink myself for some of these reasons.

As I stated though, I brought it all up for the same reason I have brought up other things recently.  If we spent as much time as some do on defending these obviously unbiblical beliefs such as drinking being sin, with as much zeal and commitment, in reaching out to those outside the Kingdom, we could really glorify God. Instead we waste tremendous amounts of time on our own legalistic views and arguments.

Alcohol is only one small part of a whole host of things that some Christians seem to want to focus on in spite of the fact that they have a mission to do.  Appearances are important as some believe when talking about drinking, but what about the appearance of condemnation we portray that is not even biblically justified.  When the lost of this world see us bickering and fighting and even bringing the charge of heresy against a minister that obviously is not heretical, what do they think?  I will tell you what they think because it was not that long ago that I thought it.  They think that there is no God.  And if there is He is not that big, not that great, and not that powerful because His whole family is so hypocritical and unloving of even each other.

We must reach out in love to a lost and dying world and to do that we have got to stop adding our own lists of sins to Gods.  That is what Jesus condemned about the Pharisees and the bible even warns us about adding to His word, but we just don’t seem to get it.  This world of lost souls is not concerned about our petty arguments and disagreements about alcohol, about divorce, about creation, about (dare I say it) initial evidence.  What this worlds lost souls are concerned about, whether they even know it or not, is the eternal destination of their very being.  And even if they are not concerned, we must be.

As I said on my post about creation recently, let’s stop all the arguing about pet doctrines and interpretations in front of the kids, so to speak, and wait until we get behind closed doors.

Love you all

“It’s a sanctuary where they don’t get shot, they don’t get stabbed, they don’t have to worry about somebody trying to sell them drugs.”

Can you guess who made this statement?  The man who said this and is the one behind the “school of rock” that it references also wrote and sang the following lyrics:

Welcome to my nightmare
I think you’re gonna like it
I think you’re gonna feel that you belong…

He is also known for his horrific theatrics in the performance of his shock rock shows.  Songs about necrophilia and tearing apart baby dolls, snakes and spiders, lots of fake blood and torture; all of these made many parents pray their kids would not listen or see this man perform in the seventies.

But now that man is praying with us.  He is a brother in Christ and has been since the eighties.  I remember hearing about it back then and thinking he had sold out.  His music changed a little (most of you would not recognize it but promiscuous sex, alcohol, satanic glorification, and others are not a part of his show or songs) and he started performing less.

Alice Cooper, yes that is who I said, Alice Cooper teaches a Wednesday night class at his church, has never cheated on his wife of 32 years, has three children, loves golf and is pretty good at winning for charity, and in 1995 started the Solid Rock Foundation which provides money for children’s causes and Christian student scholarships.  He also conceived and initiated The Rock which is a 20,000-square-foot recreational hall on the urban campus of Grand Canyon University. It will be open to children 12 to 18 at no charge; the prime target is at-risk teens, whose parents may be in jail or on drugs, and whose brothers are thugs.

Cooper says alcohol and tobacco will be banned at The Rock. There won’t be a chapel, but counselors will proselytize by example and offer religious guidance to kids who want to learn about the faith.  He says, “We are overtly Christian, but we’re not going to beat you over the head with a Bible.”

Praise God for using any and all of us who are willing.  I so wish that we would learn to stop judging and leaping to conclusions about people because of what they look like or do.  Coopers shows are still bloody, ghoulish and sometimes shocking.  But read some Shakespeare if you think this is new.  He is not a “Christian celebrity” but is open about his faith and wants the focus to be on Christ and not on Alice.

If Alice Cooper had cut his hair, quit performing and singing, and had started a church like a lot of us would have wanted and a lot did, in the eighties, he probably would not be relevant at all today.

Serve where you are.  Be who you are.  God wants you for these very reasons.

Love you all

Alice Cooper’s Solid Rock

There was a time in my life, not too long ago, that I did whatever seemed right in my eyes.  In other words, whatever I wanted.  If I wanted to watch a vampire movie, or movies filled with profanity, nudity, violence, gore, destruction, or read a book or listen to music with the same things, then I did and thought nothing of it.  And I am sad to say that I didn’t keep much of it from my kids either. 

Then I got saved.  I accepted the call from our Lord to follow Him.  So everything changed, or did it?  This is a response about the discussion from Tuesday. 

1Co 6:12  “All things are lawful for me…”All things are lawful for me,”…

1Co 10:23  “All things are lawful…. “All things are lawful…

According to Paul, in these verses, I can pretty much still watch, read, and listen to what I want.  This whole concept known as the grace and mercy of God has freed me from a legalistic definition of the Law in an attempt to reach and serve God.  And some certainly do live a life, even after “accepting” the call of God, that show us that they believe what Paul said here wholeheartedly.  Paul even repeated this four times in only two verses. 

I, as an atheist, watched people for a lot of years do exactly what I did and called themselves Christians.  So naturally I concluded, along with a lot of other observations, that God was not real.  But this was a large part of the conclusion.  Christians and atheists were doing so many of the same things so, what was the big deal about a supreme being.  But look at the following verses in their fullness.

1Co 6:12  “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be enslaved by anything.

1Co 10:23  “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

I left the emboldened parts out originally to point out how it seems that Christians read the verses, based on their perceived lives.  Based on the choices of countless Christians I have watched both before and after I joined their ranks, I have to conclude some have never paid attention to the three concepts Paul stated about all things. 

In the first verse Paul has been talking about different types of sinners, not sin, but sinners.  And he has concluded that the believers at Corinth used to be these sinners but are now washed clean by Christ.  Then he does let us know that all things are lawful because of that cleansing. 

Looking at the next verse in context we find Paul again concluding that whatever he does is lawful.  But in both cases he is quick to let us know that it is not really good for us, because all things do not help us in mission, in our freedom, or in our witness.  Read chapter 6 and 10 of 1 Corinthians with this in mind.   

A real relationship with Christ brings change.  We become new creations and I stand as a witness to this.  When I surrendered my life to Jesus Christ, some of the things I did for entertainment became vile to me.  So I knew instinctively that they were vile to the Holy Spirit because His taking up residence in me was the real change that had occurred in my life.  Dee concluded that Jesus being in the room would decide her choices and she is right.  We just have to remember He is in the room.

The questions we really have to ask ourselves about entertainment choices are; does it help us in our mission?  Does it help us in our freedom?  Does it help us in our witness? 

Does it help us in our mission?  Probably not in most cases.  As Laura stated about Seventh Heaven and such shows, they may actually hinder us because of the false gospel that is being presented.  Our mission is to reach the lost with the good news and make disciples of them.  The very idea behind entertainment implies a suspension of mission. 

I do not think it is terrible to take a break from the warfare and work we are to be doing for the Kingdom, but God gave us an example of six days work and one day of rest.  But it seems most Christians do the opposite.  They might actually do something for God on one day by going to church but then they take six days to relax from the real work by ignoring the things of God. 

Does it help us in our freedom?  Jesus freed us from our slavery to sin.  But many of us are so willing to visit it again and again like some really exciting, fun, and enjoyable relative.  The implications beneath the quote that Heath provided point to the reality of the intoxicating hold that ungodly things can have on us. 

Most of the comments had some suggestion of the idea that we need to be conscience of the effect on our spirit that our choices have.  We can become addicted to entertainment and addiction is the exact opposite of freedom.

Does it help us in our witness?  The very heart of the whole matter is how our choices can affect our witness.  Reread what I used to think about Christians.  People who see absolutely no beneficial difference in the narrow path and the wide highway are not going to creep along on the narrow.  Why should they. 

Finally, if you love your children, you have to filter what they watch, read, and hear.  There is absolutely no way that the correlation between the rise of violence, sexual promiscuity, death, the demeaning of women, and other things that are accepted in all the mediums of entertainment and the rise of the same in real society today, can be dismissed.

So to conclude I am offering these thoughts to ponder.

Do you watch The Shield but would never watch Charmed?  Do you watch Friends but would never watch Will and Grace?  Would you read Jeff Lindsay but never Stephen King?  Is country and western music okay but gangsta rap taboo? 

If you answered yes to any of the above, you might want to ask Jesus which one he would rather enjoy. He is right there with you.

Love you all